


Calling home

by laudanum_and_wine



Series: Ursa Minor [2]
Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:41:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24631753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudanum_and_wine/pseuds/laudanum_and_wine
Summary: Drabbles set after Full of Stars: all the scenes I wanted to write but didn't get to. Not necessary reading for Full of Stars or the for the Jesse & Dylan work set after it (tentatively called Yildun).
Relationships: Casper Darling & Emily Pope, Casper Darling/Jesse Faden, Jesse Faden & Emily Pope
Series: Ursa Minor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780912
Comments: 30
Kudos: 19





	1. Death and other morbid things to bother your lover about

"Director! What a lovely surprise, I was just about to step out to see if you were back. It' almost five and we've done some amazing work, I wanted to show-"

"Hey Lex, can I borrow him for the rest of the day? I have some time to move that Blackrock for Containment now," Jesse asked the new assistant Darling had stolen from Research.

The assistant looked up, nodded without speaking, then went back to their task: they had something that looked like an electrical diagram pinned to the wall, half circuits and half question marks drawn on post-its.

"Super. Darling, would you mind coming with me to the Large Containment Chamber?" Jesse tugged the man into the maze by one hand, well, actually she just walked into the maze and Darling was attached at her wrist taking her pulse and thus followed. 

They got three random switchbacks in before he'd crowded her against a wall, burying his nose below her jaw just to feel her pulse against his lips.

"I missed you," he said.

"It's only been a week," she countered. 

"It's been a very long week, Jesse," he pulled back to look her in the eye, then kiss her thoroughly before asking, "Did you actually need anything or just want to get me into a part of the House where no one could follow us?"

"Well, I need something, but here's as good a place as any. None of these doors open to actual hotel rooms, do they?"

"I deeply regret that, as far as I am aware, they do not."

She pulled him down by his tie, kissed him sloppily, her other hand clinging to his arm as he slipped both of his hands underneath her clothing, scraping his nails down her back with one and gently palming her breast with the other.

"You're just going to have to settle for an armchair," his voice was low, and she grinned. 

She pushed him back, through one door then another. Every time they were within a foot of a wall he nearly plastered her against it, hands everywhere, tongue and teeth everywhere. Finally she caught what appeared to be a wing-backed chair in the corner of one eye, and shoved him into it. She tried very hard not to use any preternatural energy to move him, but a nearby lamp shattered anyway. He grinned from his new seat, so she figured he was fine and shot a passing glare at the lamp before crawling into his lap.

"God I missed your hands," she said, letting him peel down her blouse far enough that he could lick a stripe along her breast, could nip at her skin, could… see the hole in her bra.

"Jesse, is that a bullet hole?"

"Shit," she managed eloquently. 

It hadn't been a bullet, it had been a spear of Blackrock propelled at high velocity, and it had shattered on impact. After impact. Behind her ribs. And had kept going. She wasn't going to say any of that.

"That's over your heart," he was very still, one hand was holding down her blouse (the one she'd actually thought to change out of, you know, because it was covered in blood and had a small hole in the front and a corresponding very large one in the back?) and the other having gripped her hip almost painfully hard.

She reached up, with both hands, gently loosening his grip on her shirt and moving his fingers to her wrist, pressing them in just below the heel of her palm, "I'm fine. I'm here."

Jesse watched him feel her pulse for a few long seconds, eyes fluttering shut as the hand on her hip relaxed infinitesimally. When he finally opened his eyes, he was looking at her with something like disappointment. Maybe betrayal. 

She didn't know what to say.

Both she and her prey had fired their last shot in the same moment, both had ended up bleeding out on the cold dark rock miles beneath the earth. The thing, dripping shadow with too many arms, had smiled thinking they would both die and laughed, and Jesse had laid there thinking 'Just a second longer, just a moment, just let them die first and I'm home free, free to go Home.'

Then it had been red, then black, and she had enough time to wonder if the House would send the Service Weapon back to her office somehow before there was a tug, a pull, and (thank the Board) shards of the color blue flooded in. The Service Weapon hummed in her hands as the shadowy corpse melted into a pile of black and blue, and Jesse's body had reflexively inhaled whatever life force was left.

She had coughed and choked and stood up to stare at a pool of her own blood that was still dripping down to the roots of the House.

Then she'd practically sprinted to the nearest Control Point, and barged into Underhill's lab dripping red, just pointing at the shower. It was the least public way she could think of to get cleaned up. The woman had simply nodded and left to get them lunch, then after feeding her had loaned Jesse a labcoat to wear until she could change out of her now wet-and-still-pinkish shirt.

So she had gone to her office, and changed, and saw a scrap of orange peel on the arm of the sofa there, and had again been off a jog to a Control Point, to Research, to leap out of a window (and Emily, walking up the stairs, had yelled at her about that as she jogged past), to wait impatiently at the fire break, then drag Darling down the hall to prove she was still alive.

Jesse shook the thoughts clear, realizing she'd been sitting there, silent, eyes glazed over for maybe minutes. She looked down, and now Darling's face didn't look betrayed, it looked scared and a little mournful. 

"Jesse. Jesse. Are you with me?"

"... Yeah. Wha- yeah. Sorry." She licked her lips, looked around, tried to remember where they were. The maze, they were in the maze, and here was Darling, and everything was fine.

"Come on, come with me," he was saying, helping her stand, then leading her further into the maze. There was a blur of doorways.

"Where are we going?"

"I refurbished the security office at the far end of the maze. Since only you and I can get there and we both tend to get too tired to go home, I thought it'd be an acceptable place to store a sofa and drinks… And I didn't want to go to the apartment- I didn't want to go alone. Or leave the House," Darling kept hold on her hand even as the hallway straightened out and the security office came into view. 

As he flicked on the lights she could see he'd papered over the windows from inside and had indeed dragged a couch in from somewhere, along with way too many squished throw-pillows and a bowl of fruit. A spare tie was coiled on a computer terminal, the trash was full of empty chip packets: he'd obviously been sleeping here all week.

Jesse turned, to make a joke, but the words died on her tongue.

Whatever it had cost him to lead her here through the maze, he'd run out of it. He looked tired, disheveled from her hands but in an exhausted way instead of a debauched one. She couldn't tell if he was hopeless, tired, disappointed, he just looked thoroughly done. All she could think to do was loop her arms around his chest, to let him wrap himself around her in turn and just hold her.

"Are you really alright?" He murmured the question into her hair long minutes later. 

"I'm always fine, Darling. It wasn't anything I hadn't done before," she realized those were the wrong words as soon as she said them, and tried to amend herself. "I mean, it probably looked worse than it was."

This had all been a bad idea, she should have just sent a message to Darling that she would be at the apartment, should have met him there. She could have finished a six pack before he got home, could've blared loud music and danced around the kitchen, could've cried in the shower and hidden it in the water, and she'd have been fine by the time he get in, and he'd never have known.

Darling loosened his arms from her, walking away to sit heavily at the security desk. From its drawer here produced a half empty bottle of scotch and two rather fancy cut-glass tumblers. He gestured at her, one brow raised, and she nodded then watched him pour out two overly generous servings.

"I'm not stupid, Jesse. I know it was as bad as it looked," he said after he'd handed over her glass. He sipped his sitting at the desk still, and she walked the room, reading safety posters as she drank just to keep her eyes busy. "I know what your job is. It's not like I could ask you to change anything about it, even if I wanted to. Even if you wanted to, hell. And I know how bad it can get, I saw-"

She turned, watched him finish the glass and set it down too hard, the sound like Blackrock fracturing.

"With Hedron, I saw too much, saw all the meridians, all the Control Points and the probabilities running along each one. Time isn't linear, you know, we just perceive it that way. And that's good, I can tell you firsthand: nonlinear time is a confusing mess that I had to block out to come back here," he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. 

Jesse sat on one side of the sofa, finishing her drink slowly. She wanted to pick apart his words, 'to come back' and not 'when I came back' and so much more. She didn't; her eyes felt gritty, her blinks too long. Her joints ached.

"I don't remember most of it, but I saw you. I didn't know why, at the time, or if I did I don’t now. Not why I was triggering those videos into playing around you, why I needed to watch you bleed out over and over. There were so many timelines where you dragged yourself to a Control Point half dead. Where you didn't make it to a Control Point… Where you fell for so long you had time to calm down, time to think maybe it would be okay, I could see it in your eyes, then you'd hit-" Darling scrubbed at his face again. "It doesn't matter, because you're here now. And you can't change the job, and I wouldn't want you to, but it's hard, Jesse. It's hard because I saw it, or some iteration of it, every time you jumped through those leylines. I couldn't forget all of it."

She was silent for a long time. He had slouched in the chair, shoulders hunched, staring into a middle distance. 

"Do you think you saw everything? Every possibility?" She asked, setting her now empty glass on the floor, yawning and hiding it poorly.

"Possibly. Probably. I'll never be able to remember or be sure, but I think so."

"Well, then this certainly isn't what you want to hear but, I'm glad. Because if time isn't linear, and you saw every time I could have-," Jesse stared at her hands. Didn't want to say it, not for her sake but for his, but knew she was going to. It feels strange to think of her death as inevitable in a detached way. "Then you were there, and you will be there, when it happens. I might not see you, but now I know I won't be alone. After the week I've had that's sort of nice."

Darling was staring, brow creased, when she glanced up. 

"Sorry, yeah, that wasn't what you needed to hear right now."

"No, it wasn't. It really wasn't, but…" He stood, came over just to kneel in front of her on the floor. "It's a very bitter thought, that you're going to die and I can't do anything to stop it, but honestly isn't that true for everyone? We just think about it more than most. I'm simply in the unique position of knowing that I can at least, well no, that I will at least be there with you. Even if I can't remember it."

"It's more than most people get." She thought, then after a moment, "And we're here now."

"In how many timelines or universes are we not? How many places where I came back and we couldn't make this-" he gestured between them. 

"I'm no physicist, but I think the answer to both is 'infinite.' But alternately, that is also the answer to how many universes exist where we are here, in this moment, so. There's that."

"I don't think-"

"I'm pretty sure that's how infinity works. I listen when you and Emily talk, I pick stuff up."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't argue, just moved to sit down, then lay down, then pull her into his arms on the couch, "Your adrenaline is wearing off, you should try to catch a nap."

"The lights are still on," she pointed out.

"Oh for fucks- just close your eyes, the House will turn them off," he muttered the words into her hair again. 

"I don't think that's how it works-"

"It does for you. Try it. Pretend it's an experiment, for me," he groused. She closed her eyes against the bright, listened to his breath even out and revelled in the smell of ozone, paper, and faint smoke which always clung to Darling's clothes now.

She slept fitfully, and when she woke up later the room was dim, lit by the glow of the maze lights through the papered up window. She rolled in Darling's arms and fell back to sleep, only to wake again seconds later, this time with a jerk, a full body seize. She could tell Darling hadn't slept at all, his hands were already tracing up her arms and back, smoothing palms down her shoulder blades.

"It's alright, you're here, in the House, with me," his voice low, soothing, factual.

"Darling," she whispered. He made a soft noise of acknowledgment, maybe expecting her to sleep, but she looked up and him, got her hands underneath her and tried again "Casper."

Now she had his attention, she never used that name. He glanced down, meeting her eyes for a moment in the dim room before she pulled herself up to kiss him. For just a moment he was still, and Jesse wondered if he was angry, or tired, or going to tell her to go back to sleep. But then she felt his hands where they're braced on her arms, and there was a tremor, just for a moment, and then he was kissing her back and pulling her as close as he could get her.

Jesse felt the thrum of selfishness just under her skin, behind her teeth again, saying 'mine mine mine, you're mine,' and she almost worried she said it out loud but she didn’t stop kissing him so that couldn’t have happened.

Their legs moved, both shifting, and she slipped one hand down his pants and the other around the back of his neck. She wrapped her hand around him, only half hard, and nipped gently at his lip which left him much closer to hard in her hand.

Jesse thought that normally they were both fairly communicative during sex, not chatty exactly but they spoke about what worked and what didn't. Now, though, the moment she opened her mouth to speak Darling was kissing her again, aggressively. It felt like being told to shut up, and she was surprised to find she doesn't mind it as much as she should.

She made a half attempt to stand, intending to strip out of her clothing, but was rolled over before she could manage it, and that too should have pissed her off and yet- She lay face up on the cushions, head tilted back and to the side by a soft thumb under her chin, and Darling used his teeth and tongue along her throat. It felt dangerous and vulnerable and made her grit her teeth, somewhere between tension and bliss. She let out a low keen, and he pressed closer like he was actually trying to get under her skin.

Once he'd mapped out a pattern of affection along her neck, Jesse pushed him up, pulled his shirt loose from his pants, and then it was all a tangle of hands and clothes, and at some point she ended up with her jeans around one ankle and he was half trapped in his dress shirt.

She rolled them both over without falling off the couch somehow. Darling's hands were a little trapped in his shirt, half behind him, and with the way his arms looked the fact that he was writhing was distractingly pleasant to Jesse. He glanced up at her with half-glare, but she ensured he couldn't maintain it because then her hands had pushed down both his pants and boxers boldly, pulling his cock free, and her underwear was pushed to the side because she absolutely refused to stand up long enough to take them off, and she held her breath, just for a moment, just as she-

"Oh god, Jesse," he'd gotten his hands loose, had them on her thighs, and she rolled her hips down until his length was buried inside her. At some point he had mostly unbuttoned her shirt, so she pulled it off with a tug. She leaned close and he tugged her bra down with one finger through the hole in it, craning his neck to press kisses to the skin of her chest.

She broke away long enough to sit up, to watch him use most of his self control trying to stay still underneath her. He'd dug his fingers deep into the couch cushions, muscles tensed under his skin as she moved above him, his eyes locked on her own. She wanted just that moment of clarity, just a second, one that she could think back on later when she is far away and maybe bleeding. 

"I'm here," she murmured. "Right here."

He sat up under her, pulled her close, tugged on her hips to thrust up into her heat. She clawed at his shoulders, trying to find a way to hold on without hurting him in the face of waves of overstimulation. He tugged her legs, helped her wrap them around him, and she locked her ankles behind him, was almost impressed at how easily they fit together, bodies and hands and lips moving in tandem, but she lost the thought.

Jesse felt overwhelmed with touch, the slide of skin, unable to focus. She had stopped kissing him, was just sharing panted breaths, until one of his hands spanned her back and pulled their chests flush, even with her bra tugged out of place and the wire digging into both of them. Darling's other hand tipped her head, pulled her into a kiss she could hardly focus on. He gave her a few minutes to catch up, a few minutes and then she could separate the buck of his hips from the roll of hers, could feel that they were both moving, and then she could tell them apart again as two separate people.

As soon as she'd regained her sense of self the hand on her jaw was dragged away, and those clever fingers slipped between them, found her clit, and slid along hot skin. She was close, but then he said her name and within seconds she was coming hard, sinking teeth into her own lip so she wouldn't bite Darling's. She felt him tense under her, couldn't hear the whisper of her name over the sound of her own heartbeat, but felt the rumble in his chest as he came. They stilled, tangled up together. Her eyes were closed, wanting just a little more of this moment, just a second longer before reality intruded. 

Jesse pressed her forehead to his, breathing him in like she could get closer, under his skin now.

"I'm here," Darling said, and she wasn't surprised that he knew what to say, knew what mattered right now. She didn't want to think about why she needed to hear it, didn't want to rely on him to say it.

Jesse kissed his cheek, then untangled them both and dressed herself. Darling took longer, so she put away the scotch and glasses, back into the drawer from whence they came, and peeled an orange.

"How do you feel?" He asked.

"Better," Jesse handed him half an orange. She needed to not think about all this right now. She needed to be distracted. "Bring anything new into Defense?"

Darling looked at her with that half disappointed expression. Half betrayed. But then he smiled, like he forgave her for it already, and she wondered if she would ever apologize for this. If she would get better at these moments.

"Yes, hence Lex's electronic work- they're trying to find a power supply for an object we just took from Research," and he launched into an explanation about a record player, belt driven (which apparently mattered) and ate his half of the orange as Jesse asked questions. 

Eventually they were in the Large Containment Chamber, and Darling smiled, "I was about to ask if you had the energy to move a few slabs of Blackrock just now."

"My white lie to Lex is coming true."

"I'm sure they knew it was the truth, honesty is the hallmark of your directorship," Darling had kept the tone casual, but the words still stung. Jesse didn't think he'd meant for them to.

She jumped away from the ground and her thoughts, levitated to a tall pile of Blackrock slabs, then started moving them quickly from her new vantage point. Darling directed her efficiently, pointed to the where, outlining the shape of the cells they were making with words alone. Darling had moved the rock here himself, one hydraulic trolley through the Maze at a time, but even with a weeks worth of stacks there was only enough Blackrock to build three large cubes on the floor of the Containment Chamber. There was room for more.

Jesse finally sat, exhausted, legs hanging off the edge of a cube, sweating and panting like the telekinesis had been ditch digging. Darling stared up at her, smiling blandly.

"Is that it Darling? Got any more stacks of rocks you want me to move hidden away somewhere?" She had to breathe deeply between sentences.

"None for now, though if you're saying that you're not tired yet then there's a few parabolic arrays up there you could deconstruct," He raised a hand. "Gently deconstruct: I'd like the parts intact."

She flopped back, stared at the ceiling where she'd fought tooth and nail and where she'd fallen, where Hedron and Polaris had fallen, and where Darling must have been then, to fall.

"Nope, I'm too tired," she called down. 

This room was terrible and wonderful and haunted worse than the Panopticon had ever been. They'd both been lost here, then found here, and now they were building a line of defences that would leave things lost here forever, never to be found. Things that were redacted, like the Turntable, and the Slide Projector, and maybe Northmoor someday. Maybe her or Darling, some distant day.

Jesse swung herself down to the floor stories below, levitating just an inch above the ground for a moment reflexively. Darling didn't even flinch when she threw herself off of buildings anymore. 

"Let's go home," she said. She wanted him to hear the apologies in that, hoped he understood that she meant, 'I'm glad we get to go home' and 'I promise to tell you when I almost die' and 'I'm sorry that I can't face my emotions some days' and 'I'm sorry that I won't die alone but you will, I'm so sorry that I'll leave you.'

"Okay," and he smiled back. She didn't know what he heard, but he took her hand (her pulse) and walked with her back to and through the maze, then Research, then Executive, then down Barley to 6th street, then into their house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, Laud here: this was supposed to be happy porn, can you believe it? :D My hand to god, this started out as plotless porn fluff, just adrenaline fueled sexy times. And then instead I made it melodramatic and angsty, who would ever have thought, right?!?!
> 
> Anyway, this is probably painfully indicative of the quality the drabbles here will be, so if you just want a more cohesive story of Dylan and Jesse figuring out adulthood wait a week and I'll have some of the next story, Yildun, up.


	2. How to lose friends and alienate coworkers: a guide to inappropriate April Fools jokes in a paranatural workplace pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reddit made me do it- a sub series entirely because of this brilliant post:
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/controlgame/comments/h06k34/as_a_low_level_employee_of_fbc_how_would_you_go/
> 
> There will be a few of these "prank" chapters, so hopefully it make you smile!

"Director, did you need something?" 

"Shhhh!" Jesse furiously waved her hands, but was smiling. 

Underhill waited a moment, then peered around the corner Jesse was standing beside. Across the open lobby of Research was the cafeteria and one Doctor Casper Darling staring at a plastic dining chair. Underhill glanced from the Director to Casper several times.

"... Why are you stalking Casper from across Research?"

"I'm not, shit, here," Jesse pulled back around the corner and Undehill followed her, both out of Casper's potential line of sight. "I'm not stalking him Raya, for gods sake. I'm messing with him. What do you see is wrong with that chair?" 

"It's the chair from the upstairs storage room which someone spray painted off-green?"

"Yes, it's not the right green! Darling gave me a hard time a while ago about a chair- it doesn't matter. So now I've decided that particular chair is haunting him," Jesse looked surprisingly proud of that statement. "It's been traveling all over the House, but only on days when he drinks coffee rather than tea. He's tracking it, I think he thinks it's an altered item!"

"You are a twelve year old child," Underhill deadpanned.

"No-"

"The Director of the FBC has the emotional maturity of a plant."

"Listen, Raya-"

"He's never going to fall for it," Underhill finished.

"Look!" Jesse poked her head around the corner, so Underhill followed suit and… Casper was taking notes in a small journal while standing next to the chair. 

"He knows it's the same chair, but I don't think he's figured out the coffee thing," Jesse was barely containing her laughter. "He's just. Chair watching." She dissolved into snickering.

Underhill paused for a long moment, wondering if she should even ask. It was unprofessional and rude and none of her business but, "... Is this some sort of bizarre form of grade-school flirting, or are you two already sleeping together?"

Jesse croaked loudly mid laugh, then dragged herself back around the corner to cough and wheeze where the target of her prank could not accidentally see her, and Underhill just watched with eyebrow raised. She noted the Director's pink cheeks and flapping hands.

"Well, that's an answer for me. I'm happy for you, you two are complete imbeciles and deserve one another," Underhill sniffed and walked past Jesse toward the cafeteria, but turned and paused. "In exchange for my silence to Casper regarding this matter, I fully expect updates as to how he's handling it."

"Deal," Jesse coughed after the word. 

"And I expect my lab to remain prank free," Underhill raised her brows in what she hoped was an authoritative manner. She was channeling her primary school biology teacher, hoping Jesse would understand the depth of her displeasure at the thought of such frivolity coming into a place of science. "Have a good day, Director."

Casper looked up as Underhill passed him, "Hello Raya."

"Doctor. Were you going to sit?" Underhill gestured at the chair he stood beside. She could feel Jesse's glare on her, the woman was probably wondering what on earth Raya was saying.

"No! Uhm, Raya, does anything about this chair look strange to you?"

"No, nothing... Are you feeling well Casper?"

"Fine, yes. Have a, uhm, have a good lunch Raya," the man stared at the chair and scribbled something more in his notebook. 

Raya had a perfectly lovely salad for lunch, and by the time she had finished it both Jesse and Casper were gone. So was the questionable chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so goofy as to almost be crack, but hell. I'm enjoying it.


	3. How to lose friends and alienate coworkers: a guide to inappropriate April Fools jokes in a paranatural workplace pt 2

"Honestly I don't know how you all do it, but you really do make this whole place much more lovely," Simon leaned against the planter casually, trying very hard not to look like he was talking to a ficus. "We sure could use more green in Maintenance, if any of your friends have any interest in… Visiting I guess." 

Simon blinked at the plant. It looked the same as ever.

"Jesse was right, you're a good listener," Simon was about to thank the plant when he glanced up and-

There was a sharp crack of a clipboard on cement, then Emily was hanging from a window by her arms then abruptly dropped, landing in a crouch with a visible wince.

"Em?" His voice sounded incredulous even to him.

"Simon!" She scooped up the clipboard and ran over, "Have you seen Jesse?"

"No. This is Research, it's your office..? Why would she be here?" Simon looked down the stairwell, glancing around for red hair. "We were supposed to get lunch- is everything okay?"

"Totally!" She pressed a kiss to the corner of Simon's mouth, a casualness that still surprised him. "I need to get to Darling's office before Jesse."

With those words Emily was off at a jog.

"Why?" Simon found he was already jogging after her, both of them waving past security quickly.

"I'm messing with her," Emily admited, fidgeting and looking behind them while they waited for the firebreak to open. Once it did she looked like she was about to sprint across the railing-less bridge for a moment, but somehow must find the patience to slow herself to a speed-walk. Simon did not look down as he followed her.

"Why?"

"She's headed to Defense, and she knows I've been studying the Control Points lately, particularly her unique use for them. I just happen to startle her last week and she joked about me being able to teleport, I forgot to laugh, and she got this look like she was suspicious I really could. Which gave me the idea to just really mess with her. I absolutely booked it here from Parapsychology as soon as Jesse was distracted, and if we hurry-" she ducked under the last firebreak as it rose and gestured at him impatiently, "Then she should be totally shocked to find me here first."

Emily rapped twice on the open office door and walked inside, "Doctor Darling?"

"Emily, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Darling was at his desk, smiling and looked generally unsurprised by the interruption.

"I just wanted to check in on the Blackrock acquisition for Defense: I know you'd earmarked most of the slabs from this month but we had a bit of an... Explosion in parakinesiology and I was hoping I could steal a few cubic meters for a patch?" Emily smiled, tapping her pen against her clipboard idly. 

Simon had heard about the parakinesiology damage, that kind of thing happened when you were launching solid objects around all day. He didn't think the patch was urgent though, and he didn't know why Emily was nervous. Simon wondered if Darling knew about that little pen-tap-tell of Emily's, if he knew she was either lying or stretching the truth. 

Darling's eyebrows raised. He knew.

"Of course Emily… You didn't need to come all the way over to ask. I'll have the next transport stop by the labs before moving on, just tell Dr. Harrington to take what she needs," Darling looked like he was a little suspicious, but didn't ask. Distantly Simon heard the grind of firebreak stones begin to lift.

"Thank you Doctor," Emily smiled, turned. "Well Simon, we'd better get to lunch!" Then she was out the office door. 

Darling gave Simon a questioning look, which he had to shrug at. He left behind Emily, planning on asking about the Blackrock. 

When the firebreak opened, there was their Director walking toward them. Jesse made it about three steps into the lobby, opened her mouth, and Simon saw the moment abject confusion hit her face, she literally did a double take.

"Hello again Jesse!" Emily practically chirped, and kept walking, out through the firebreak and along the stone bridge. Simon followed mutely, because good god-

"Darling, was that Emily?"

"Yes, she needed to know about a potential Blackrock requisition."

"How the fuck did she-?" Jesse's awed question was cut off by the thump of closing stone as the firebreak shut her in Defense and them on the bridge.

Simon almost fell into the void laughing.

"Oh my god, Em, that was brilliant!"

"I know." 

"Her face!"

"I know!"

"She looked like she was trying to do long division in her head!"

They were sill laughing when they half stumbled through the second firebreak into Research, earning a wry glance from the agent at the security point. They'd toned it down to just grinning when Emily led them into her office to drop off both clipboard and notes.

"So, how many times do you think you'll have to do something like that before Jesse flat-out asks you about it?" Simon leaned against the workbench as Emily emptied out her pockets into drawers.

"I imagine two or three times, Jesse's nothing if not suspicious! I might be able to be more convincing if you'd be willing to lend me some assistance, maybe tell Jesse you just saw me someplace I could possibly be?" Emily asked, and she had that excited grin and one eyebrow up and Simon just had to kiss her. So he did, then promptly felt himself blush and opened the door for her to distract from it.

"I think I could be talked into helping, yeah."

Emily smiled at him, a little like he was a confusing puzzle to be solved, or an interesting plant, or a building shift. Then she bought him lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of this dumb prank idea: it's stupid and implausible and fun.


	4. How to lose friends and alienate coworkers: a guide to inappropriate April Fools jokes in a paranatural workplace pt 3

"Raya, I'm telling you, this simply doesn't count as a prank."

"But she's mildly inconvenienced on a regular basis! Surely that has to count," Underhill stabbed at her salad.

"True, and you have to understand that for anyone but Jesse it would have been a clever and subtle piece of mischief," Darling had peeled and orange, and paused before breaking into segments and eating them. Was it strange that he wanted to save half an orange? Would it be ridiculous to leave one half of a peeled orange on the Director's desk? 

"And why does it not work on Director Faden, exactly? What about her makes her so immune to this particular brand of subterfuge? Educate me on the finer points of this, Doctor, since you know her so well," the sarcasm dripping off Raya's words almost had a detectable odor. 

"My dearest Doctor Underhill, this is why," Darling flipped through a stack of reports beside him and pulled out a signed form. A form signed by one Jesse Faden, dated today, in blood red ink.

"But that's not official, she has to use blue or black ink to sign forms! And I was very thorough, I replaced the ink inside every pen, regardless of the cases color, in her whole office. I even replaced the pens in that little defunct secretarial desk outside. After she signed this it would have taken her at least five minutes to re-print the form, find a new pen, test it, and sign in black!" She sounded triumphant, waved a skewered cherry tomato in glee.

"And that would be very inconvenient only Jesse simply did not notice the issue at all," Darling tucked the form back into the stack of paper. 

"But- But it's not officially signed-"

"No, but Jesse doesn't know that," Darling tucked a bit of peeled orange into his labcoat pocket.

"All her department Heads will need to come back and have the forms re-created."

"No Raya, they'll all do what I'm going to do right after lunch."

Raya ate her tomato and waited a long moment before finally sighing, "Oh alright, I'll bite Casper: what will they and you do to fix this red signature issue I have caused?"

"Find an old black and white photocopier," Darling stood. "And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go confiscate all the pens within a hundred feet of the Director's office, thanks to you."

He heard Raya muttering something about chairs into her salad but chose to ignore it in favor of trying to juggle his stack of papers and not crush the segments of orange in his pocket. Honestly Jesse would deserve it if the damn thing leaked and got her desk tacky with juice, he didn't actually know that this photocopier trick would work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to a very short chapter. I thought it was funny, but I'm a moron (and work in an office and LOATHE when my coworkers use non-black pens, JFC...)


	5. How to lose friends and alienate coworkers: a guide to inappropriate April Fools jokes in a paranatural workplace pt 4

"I need your help."

Since she was laying down with both legs in his lap and had dropped the report she was reading to fall directly onto her own face, Darling assumed that whatever Jesse needed help with it wasn't dire.

"With what?"

"I need to get even with Arish," her voice was distorted by the 50 pages of typewritten paper covering her nose and mouth.

"I'm sorry, get even for what? For aiding and abetting in Emily's plan to confuse you, frustrate you, and make you question your sanity? For wasting hours of your time on meaningless circle chasing and making you doubt reality for a laugh?" He thumbed to the next page of his report.

"So you're still a little bitter about the chair thing," was the muffled reply.

"Whom, me? Not one bit, I find it charming that I had twenty pages of notes which I was excitedly reviewing with Raya when she finally cracked," Darling has to flip back a page, realizing he hadn't read that chart, actually. "I had a spreadsheet, Jesse. A spreadsheet."

"Your anal retentive attention to detail is so sexy," Jesse flipped up the report to hide her eyes and flash a grin at him, probably knowing she was already forgiven.

"Why do you want to 'get even' with Simon? What has that poor young man ever done to you to deserve such frustration?"

"Well he helped Emily confuse me for a month, but mostly," Jesse paused, propped herself up onto her elbows, and looked at him. She waited for Darling to lock eyes with her, to pause in his reading, then said seriously, "He's not scared of me."

"Ah, so your goal is less of a 'prank' and more of a 'scare the hell out of your subordinate' situation. I cannot possibly imagine how this could backfire or why HR might possibly need to get involved," Darling looked over, caught Jesse's eye where she'd lifted the report to hold it over her face again. "And, my dear, what you really need more than anything is intense scrutiny from HR."

He knew he was smiling, but somehow he just couldn't help it. To be fair the chair thing would probably be a funny story at some point when it felt less fresh. 

"Because you are so charming, and because I love you, and partially because I genuinely believe that without help you will pull something ridiculously complex and frustrating like the chair fiasco, I will indeed help. Do you have a plan?"

"No," Jesse stood, began to pace the room. The report she was supposed to be working on had fallen to the ground. "But he's been talking to the plants a lot lately."

Darling considered this, "I may have something that will work involving the plants watering times and hydrophobic cement sealant."

\---

Darling was in Pope's office when Jesse found him, standing on a box on top of a chair breaking probably several safety codes to reach a model tesseract hundred from the ceiling.

Both he and Emily turned to look at Jesse when she breezed into the room without knocking, but considering the situation for a moment Jesse simply crossed her arms and waited for Darling to retrieve the model and get back to the ground before speaking.

"Darling, a word?" Then she was out of the office, headed to Defense it seemed.

He smiled at Emily and shrugged apologetically, then followed. Jesse had only stopped in the hallway just before the security checkpoint, and spoke quietly. 

"Did you start the plant thing without me, or is my head of Security going crazy?"

"I haven't even found the sealant yet, so no. I'm certainly not walking about Research with a can of spray paint and a stencil, Jesse, that's going to be your job," he shifted the metal cube between hands. "What were you saying about Simon going crazy?"

"He was talking to the plant. No, okay, I know we all talk to the plants at this point. He was talking to it as though it had talked back."

Darling glanced around, smiled, tried to find an explanation, "Okay?"

"Well if it wasn't-" Jesse's jaw clicked shut as Emily stepped out of her office.

The head of Research was heading downstairs, but had paused for a moment in the doorway to her office before leaving. They waited a beat until the hallway was empty again.

"If it wasn't me, you were saying," Darling prompted, but Jesse's eyes were narrowed. She walked back to the plant by the doorway of Pope's office and stared. He was about to ask why when she plucked a dead leaf from the planter and held it up to him.

'You look handsome today,' was written in what looked like sharpie.

"Well, thank you Jesse," he grinned. 

"Thank the plant," she sniffed. "I hate that sweater vest and you know it. So this is Emily?"

"She's leaving complimentary notes in the potted plants. What are the odds?"

Jesse frowned, "Synchronicity."

"It makes as much sense as anything," Darling took the leaf from her and set it back into the planter. After a moment he looked up at the plant, cleared his throat, "Ahem. Thank you for putting up with us humans just being so weird. Your, uh, leaves look particularly lovely today."

"Very green," Jesse agreed.

He glanced at her and the two devolved into snickering, Darling carrying the metal tesseract model in one hand and reaching for Jesse with the other.

If one of the green leaves now had the words 'thank you,' spelled out in the pale green of its veins, well, no one noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the quick and silly end to the prank subseries: back to angst!!!


	6. She knows, she knows, she knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Dead Man's Party the other day and got the Darling feels, and by the song Stay was just like "Welp, that's gonna need a chapter."
> 
> It got mushy at the end, I regret nothing. Also any time I have a romantic scene to write I'm listening to 90s alt rock.

Darling had been rinsing and draining the rice a third time when he heard the front door click shut.

"Are you listening to Oingo Boingo?"

He looked up and there was Jesse, in a suit, hair pinned back, looking professional and tired and a little offended.

"... Is this somehow a trick question?" He glanced around the room for an answer.

"This album is like forty years old," she set a briefcase on the ground. 

"Alright, no, that's not correct: this album is thirty five years old, and further it's a classic," he continued what he had been doing before being so rudely interrupted. He didn't glance up at her scoff.

"Darling, this album is ancient," Jesse sat, unpinning her hair. "This album is almost vintage. This album is only played jokingly at goth clubs-" 

"That's ridiculous, this isn't goth music," He looked confused.

"Okay, alright, you have an opinion on that, but it just proves how old this album is: no one today remembers the genre."

"Jesse," he said conversationally. He smiled his best charming smile at her. "I am making dinner, and if you like eating food you will stop making fun of Oingo Boingo."

"But it's so easy, your musical taste is so dated," she complained, then went to shower. He started the album over while she was gone, and despite a lingering petty feeling did serve rice and vegetables onto two plates instead of just the one for himself. 

+++

"I know that song."

Jesse slapped the laptop shut, and looked up at him through what she probably thought were innocent eyes. She just looked a bit shocked, maybe that he was home so soon, maybe that he'd heard the music from the front door. 

The music kept playing.

Jesse pried open the laptop and clicked on something, and finally the room was silent.

"Hm?" Again she was faux innocence.

"I said I know that song," Darling repeated, walking closer to her perch on the sofa, trying to place the tune. "I've heard that before and- Oh Jesse."

"What?"

He leaned against the couch on one arm and grinned, "Old Gods of Asgard, really? You're into 70s stoner ballads, and you're giving me a hard time over Oingo Boingo?"

"Old Gods rock, Darling. They objectively kick ass, it doesn't matter how old the album is, they're totally awesome. Don't make fun it-"

He cut her off by pressing a kiss at her hairline.

"But it's so easy," he mimicked her voice, still grinning. She waited until he was out of the room, but he heard her open the laptop and restart the song once he'd gone.

+++

"Why Oingo Boingo, though."

"Weird Science," he said without looking up from the report he was reading. 

Jesse was fiddling with a radio, playing another staticky tango. It was impressive that they got any reception at all, down here in the depths of the House. They both knew why, really, and since it was tango or nothing right now they listened to tango. Jesse looked up and he felt more than saw her roll her eyes.

"I mean, obviously Weird Science. But why still? All the albums you've downloaded are from 1989 or prior, there isn't even any Nirvana in there," she sat a little gracelessly in the chair beside him, and he lifted his paper because, sure enough, she had swung her legs into his lap as soon as she could.

"I got my first job with the FBC in 1992, and at the time I wasn't too caught up on music," his thumb dragged along cotton until he found a hem, pushed the cuff of Jesse's suit up to press fingertips to the inside of her ankle. "Then once you're here, no real radio, and… I just never paid attention to music after that."

"And-"

"No kids, so no new musical tastes evolving. Then eventually when Michelle… Ah, when we were divorced I got an apartment and I don't think I even bought a stereo for a few years after that, just listened to tapes in the car," he shrugged, it's not like it was important. Kept tracing sweeping lines along the ankle in his grip. He was still looking at the reports but couldn't quite find the line he'd last read.

The silence wasn't awkward, not exactly, but he could feel the way she wanted to find the right words. Jesse was nothing if not precise and accurate, even with her language.

"I have a collection of cassette tapes," Jesse said. "For a long time I was moving a lot-"

"You were fleeing the shady government agency I worked for, Jesse. You can just say it."

"Yeah," she nodded. "That. Well I was on the move a lot, and I drove a lot of cars that were a little older. I kept picking up cassette tapes of music I liked, and when things got bad and. And I'd have to leave some place in a hurry, you know, because of the shadowy government agency? I'd take just the best of the tapes."

"What were the best?"

"The kinds of things you can get on tape, I guess. Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Dire Straits. I was always looking for a tape of Old Gods, but never found one," she pulled her feet from his lap, but rolled her chair closer to rest her chin on his shoulder a little painfully. It's lovely. "I had a few odds one in there too, the ones I would leave behind when I packed up. A couple of boy-band albums from the late 90s. Paul Simon's Graceland. Some tape in Italian, about Elvis? That one was pretty good actually. But I guess I never listened to modern music, still don't."

Darling set his paper down and Jesse sat up, leaving a pleasantly sore spot in her wake.

"I hear modern pop music is really awful," he said.

"That's what Simon said, yep. Something about Emily liking sad folk music that made him want to cry, but at least it wasn't pop?" Jesse shrugged, like that was another language.

“I liked some folk music,” Darling admitted.

“I had a Bob Dylan tape for a while. Didn’t make the collection, but it was good.”

He just nodded, handed her the report he’d been working through, “You actually do need to read this.” 

“Something important?” Jesse flipped from relaxed to focused immediately.

“Yes.”

“Dangerous?” She was thumbing through the pages now, scanning for highlighted charts of data most likely.

“It’s about the Operations budget,” Darling tried very hard not to smile. Probably failed.

“Darling,” Jesse was staring at the paper, not looking at it really, just holding still now. Considering her words, he’d bet. “You suck.”

It was succinct, he’d hand her that.

“I’m going to get lunch, I‘ll bring you up a sandwich.You can read it now, or at home, but I bet good money that Arish will ask you about it tomorrow morning,” Darling stood, and Jesse followed him toward door, to collapse into the sofa beside it with her report.

“You suck and Oingo Boingo is dated.”

+++

He had known Jesse would be at the House for another few hours, which meant that there was a fairly good chance that something would come up or break or implode and she wouldn't actually make it home tonight. He probably spent more time in her apartment than she did, but that was fine with him: he had a stack of original model HRAs scattered half across a coffee table, and unlike at work here at home no one could interrupt his tinkering.

As soon as he'd had that thought the landline rang, cutting through his concentration. He wipped oil off his hands before he picked up the phone.

“Doctor Darling speaking.”

“Casper,” Jesse said and quickly added her now standard disclaimer of "Not important," before continuing "I just wanted to know if you needed anything from the deli? I’m staring at this potato salad and realized I have no idea if there’s food in the fridge because I don't think I've opened it this week.”

“There is now, I picked some things up on the way home," he set down the HRA shell and walked back into the kitchen to stare at the contents of the refrigerator for a moment. 

“I’ll pick up something for dessert.”

“That sounds lovely, thank you Jesse. And white wine if you see it?” Darling paused then. “Love you.”

“Same. Home soon.”

He eyed the coffee table and dining table, and decided clearing the actual dining room might be simpler, and nicer considering this was the first meal they were going to eat together at home in weeks. Most of the mess went into a filing box to be drug back to the Bureau, except for the still-hot soldering iron which he, after burning himself, aggressively dropped point up into a coffee mug and left on the coffee table so he wouldn't break the damn thing.

Despite knowing she was probably minutes away when she called, the sound of the key in the door made him startle for just a moment, just enough that he thought to himself, 'Lucky I wasn't still cutting vegetables.'

Darling resumed stirring the pasta, pretended his pulse was fine.

"That smells amazing," Jesse set a bottle of white wine and a cantaloupe on the counter. "I hope you wanted fresh fruit, they were dead ripe."

"It'll go well with the pasta primavera."

"That sounds amazing. Mind if I put on music?" 

He shook his head and drained the pasta over the sink, "Feel free."

She fiddled with the laptop and speaker they'd plugged in and left on the raised portion of the kitchen island. Something started playing, acoustic and simple.

"Did you listen to any alternative music when it came out?" Jesse had returned and peeled the lead off the wine with a butter knife as she asked. Before Darling could think to wonder if they had a bottle opener she had simply made a twisting motion with one hand and the cork jumped out of the bottle and into her palm.

"Uhm, I'm sorry, what- What was the question?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I distract you?" Jesse smiled like a shark and pulled down two wine glasses. 

"I refuse to be embarrassed about the fact that I find you distractingly attractive, dear."

"You find me distracting when I use telekinesis?"

"To be fair, you seem distracted when I move office furniture," he pointed out while she poured two glasses of wine. He matched her grin as best he could. "At least I assume based on the time you tripped over the carpet."

"You know what you look like underneath those awful knit vests," she countered. She was walking back to the laptop, to fiddle with the playlist presumably, despite still not having repeated her question. "Telekinesis does not compare to muscles."

"Says you," Darling drained the pasta. "What are we listening to?"

"Alternative music from 1995, I made a playlist."

Darling set the pasta down to pick up the wine she had poured him, then paused glass still on the counter, "When did you have time to make a playlist?"

Jesse shrugged.

"Jesse," he smiled, which was his go-to reaction when confused. "Really, when did you have time to make this? You haven't been home all week."

"Don't get sappy on me," she looked embarrassed, then after a minute pulled a piece of scrap paper from under the laptop. He had recognized it vaguely, had seen it in and out of her hands and pockets over the last few weeks. It was covered in her spidery handwriting in dozens of places, all different inks and colors (more than a few lines were red he noticed, not to be confused with the browning smear of blood on the corner). "I just made a list in my head at first, of bands I thought you'd like. Then I forgot some, and figured I'd better write it down, and I kept thinking of bands. And songs."

He pulled the paper from her fingers gently and turned it over in his hands. At what must have been the top of the page at some point is written 'An introduction to modern music because Casper has no taste.' Next to some of the entries, which were mostly song titles and band names, were numbers with little question-marks next to them.

"What is-?" He pointed to the laptop, and she replied by just tapping a line of blue on the paper. "Natalie Merchant, Jealousy, 95," He read. "How long did this take you?"

"Not long, it's really-"

"It's really sweet is what it is. Thank you."

"You're getting sappy," she was probably trying to look annoyed but he didn't find it very convincing. 

Darling knew his smile was sappy but she was smiling back and looking a little bashful, so he set the paper down, plucked her wineglass from her hand to set on the counter beside his, and kissed her. 

And she being Jesse, and it being the first time they'd been home together in a week, and the music being what it was, he felt like there really never had been any chance of them getting back to dinner before the pasta welded to the bottom of the pot he'd left it in. Unlike pasta, cantaloupe could be enjoyed in bed, with a mostly nude partner. If he accidentally spilled a drop of juice on her, well that was delicious too and paired well with the white wine and music. 


	7. Pour a little salt we were never here

It probably hadn’t started with the beautiful red apple waiting on his desk when he came back to the office, but that had been his first hint. He knew it was from Jesse, partially because Lex told him so and partially because they also teased him about it.

"I've never seen anyone whose love language is just fruit," Lex gestured at a banana Jesse had left the day prior. "Fruit! You two are ridiculous."

Darling didn't know what to say, so he just picked up and bit into the apple as smugly as possible, and it was indeed predictably delicious. Lex was already focused on the soldering project before them and didn't even notice.

By that evening there had been a minor outbreak of intense vertigo, which Emily was hypothesizing was related to a pogo stick when she wasn't doubled over with nausea. She'd been in the Panopticon when whatever triggered the Altered Item to misbehave had happened, and was one of only twenty or so agents impacted. Since the Director had come into her office that morning then disappeared into the Maintenance sector for the rest of the day, presumably working, she couldn't be reached to deal with the item. She had obviously been around at some point to drop off the apple, but hadn't mentioned where she was going. Darling was sure that wherever the Director was it was probably grimy and dark and dangerous, and whatever she was doing was probably important. He was also sure Jesse would feel terrible about not being there when an Altered Object caused her staff to feel ill, so he had headed down to medical to check in on them himself. He knew that he couldn't help directly but was hoping that somehow his being there would make Jesse feel better about having been absent.

It had been a vague ephemeral idea which he regretted deeply when a dizzy and clammy Emily Pope had buried her nails into his arm and demanded that he take notes for her in light of her inability to open her eyes without dry heaving.

Her dictation had gone on for several hours, and he'd fallen asleep shortly after she had, halfway keeled over in a chair between the cot holding Emily and the one holding Jerome. Between the two nauseous agents they had dictated enough observations on the event, the object, and the symptoms they'd experienced to fill half of Darling's notebook.

He'd woken to a gentle hand on his cheek, fingers just a hint too warm to be anyone but Jesse.

"Darling, wake up."

She had looked too gentle, too kind, he was too happy to see her, and he had fallen asleep in the House which meant nothing could possibly be as good as it seemed. He panicked very quietly, which was a learned skill he was proud of.

"What's wrong?" He kept his voice low.

Jesse's brow creased, her gentle eyes darkening in a only a moment, "Nothing, everything's fine."

Darling straightened in his seat, trying to convince his racing heart she was telling the truth. She must be, they practically had a code for 'I'm lying but need you to behave as though you don't know that,' and this wasn't that code. If it was she would have been smiling widely and calling him by his first name. He wondered if other couples had that kind of code, or needed it.

"When did you get in?" He asked, instead of asking for an explanation for that feeling of half truth.

“Just now. Emily woke up a few minutes ago and checked herself out of medical, she said thank you for the note taking. She also said you should go home."

"She did not," he smiled.

"No, but we should,” Jesse stood, took his hand, gently tugged him to his feet. He wondered if she would have pulled him upright even if he hadn’t been trying to stand. He wondered if she would have levitated him down the halls if he refused, and grinned at her.

“What?”

“Nothing, or rather, nothing important. How was your day, how was Maintenance?”

She was silent for a long moment as they walked, but this wasn’t totally abnormal for her. When they’d first met Jesse had seemed to think over her words carefully before speaking, and if anything her time as Director had only cemented that habit. Sometimes she would spend literal minutes in consideration before replying to a question. Darling saw how this worried some of the other agents, they felt as though she was deciding if they deserved the truth, if they were trusted. He knew she was considering how much danger to put them in. He’d observed the way her department heads waited, however, and saw that they at least tried to understand that too much information made you vulnerable here. Emily hated it, though. Darling felt a little guilty about that.

"I want to go home," she said, and set her jaw. Darling smiled his best 'This is me agreeing and not prying,' smile and held the door for her.

"Do you need to go by your office?"

She moved her hands as though she was about to feel her pockets, but stopped, "No. Let's just get out of here."

Jesse took his hand the moment they were outside the House, and they began the normal walking-and-banter they’d perfected while somehow only being in the city late at night. They were lucky this part of town was forever quiet, the empty streets allowing them to walk at their own pace. At one point they stopped at a market, both realizing they were starving and laughing that they hadn't noticed. Jesse bought premade teriyaki bowls from a cold case for them, and Darling carried them so Jesse would have a hand available to reach up the back of her leather jacket and pull free the Service Weapon if she needed to. She had never needed to while outside of the House, but Darling pretended not to notice that she preferred to have a hand free. Like he had pretended not to notice that she had slept with the gun between the sofa cushions before, and next to the bed now, that she left it next to the sink when she showered and on the counter when she cooked. Like he didn't notice that she would wake him up half the nights with an aborted punch begun in bad dreams, and like he hadn't noticed that she was playing pretend this whole evening, the whole walk home.

Jesse didn’t lie, but she was good at pretending everything was alright when it wasn’t.

He didn’t pressure her, they ate cold vegetables with chicken and a too-sweet glaze while listening to the new album she’d downloaded to the apartment laptop. Simon was right, this indy music was incredibly sad, but Jesse seemed to like it. They cleaned the kitchen, and he took out the trash when she had to throw away a whole crisper drawer full of vegetables they’d forgotten about. Jesse showered, still used to bathing at night after a hundred grimy blue-collar jobs had ingrained it in her over the years. She left her hair down to dry when she emerged from the steamy bathroom and sat between his legs where he was reclining on the sofa. Darling set his mostly unread journal of psychology down on the carpet, watched the muscles of her back move under her tank top as she leaned forward to set the Service Weapon on the coffee table with a click, then she finally leaned back and let him wrap his arms around her and put her hands over his. The wet of her hair pressed against his shirt, leaving it damp as he watched the middle distance near the kitchen light fixture and listened to her breathe.

“What’s wrong?” Darling ran his fingers along the hair at her temple, trying hard not to tangle it.

Jesse was quiet, not denying that something was indeed wrong. That was a start.

“I was worried for a moment earlier that you were leaving me, or were asking me to leave,” He tried to laugh, hoping that the dark humor and honesty would open her up. “But in my experience you don’t normally buy someone dinner then curl up with them while in your undergarments if you’re planning on ending things. I have been wrong before, though.”

Jesse tipped her head straight back to glare at him upside down, “I’m not leaving you.”

“Okay,” he nodded, brushed her hair back out of her eyes. “Then whatever it is that you’re letting eat you up today, just know that... Well, that I love you, I suppose. And you can talk about it if you want to. When you want to. If, in fact, you can talk about it."

Jesse stirred, and he loosened his arms as she rolled over, shifting to settle facing him, arms wrapped around his chest now, face pressed into the hollow of his throat.

After a few long minutes she said, “I’m furious about something, and I’m fairly sure when I tell you about it you won’t be furious. And somehow that pisses me off.”

He laughed, amused, "You're preemptively mad at me for this, aren't you?"

She didn't laugh, and though he couldn't see her he didn't think she had smiled either, just squeezed her arms around him painfully tight for a moment.

"Alright," Darling tried to sound less entertained. "Well then, tell me what this 'something' is so I can make my own mind up and you can be justifiably angry at me."

She didn't even pause, just said it low like she'd been holding it in all day, "You're listed as an Altered Item in the Archives."

Darling had to think about what those words even meant for a long moment.

"I see," He let his fingers trail down Jesse's side to trace triangles on her back. Her anger was understandable: Dylan had been treated as an object for years, the FBC had a history of taking away the personhood of their staff. She knew about Northmoor, and as the actual Director probably liked that outcome even less than he had when he'd learned of it, and now another person she cared about was being listed as an object and probably-

"You're afraid they wouldn't let me leave, if I tried."

"It's not up to them," she said quietly, and her arms were a little tight around his chest again. He waited, silent, letting her be angry at something faceless and out of her control, until she sat up to look at him while she spoke. "It's up to you, and I'm the Director, damn it, I should get to decide- What good is all this power and control if I don't even get to decide this?"

He felt his brows crease, trying to find something to say that would help. His silence stretched too long.

"I wasn't even supposed to find out, you know," her voice was bitter. "I was just curious, Emily had said something about having spent enough time in the Archives for this whole year. I asked why, and she said something about looking for a precedent of department heads being in relationships since Simon wanted to update his address to her apartment and that might just tip off HR, and I thought 'I should probably bite the bullet and look into that too.' Burying my head in the sand was bad, right? And in retrospect the Astral Spike that kept appearing in Archives every time I visited was suspicious, but I eventually launched that little shit straight to the bottom of the Panopticon, wherever the hell that is, and found my records, and… It turns out HR does indeed have this address listed for me, but you don't have an address because you don't have a fucking personnel file, you have-"

Darling eyed the magazine floating a few inches above the ground, the Service Weapon spinning lazily in mid air, and sat up straighter, brushed a thumb along her cheek.

"You have-" She tried again.

"Jesse, I need you to calm down just a little, I know you're angry but-"

"You have an AI-RE file instead," She was almost shouting, but not quite, it was very difficult to make Jesse shout. The lamp behind her was suspended now, the lightbulb just beginning to flicker.

"What it says on some paper in Archives in no way defines me, you know that Jesse."

"It doesn't define you, it defines the FBC."

“Ah.”

He didn't know what else to say mostly because she was right: he wasn't angry. The FBC wasn't a good or just place to work, he'd had more than a quarter of a century to feel that fact as it was slowly inscribed into his bones. Morals had nothing to do with the Bureau, it wasn’t immoral it was amoral. What was human morality to a god, a monster, the House? Jesse didn't have those years of weathering, she knew the FBC had done questionable things, but she had probably hoped that would all change with her in charge. He didn't really care that much. But she did, and she was probably about to shatter a window, so he tried very hard to care just a little.

"What does RE stand for?" Well that wasn't exactly the conciliatory outrage he'd had in mind.

"I don't know, uh-" Jesse paused, the lamp lowered. "Resonance Emitting maybe?"

"Do you have an AI-RE entry?" Apparently distracting her was working, so he tried to keep that up.

The lamp settled, the Service Weapon clicked onto the coffee table, the journal hit the carpet. He breathed a little more easily.

"I didn't look."

"Well. You are right inasmuch as it is completely unacceptable that the Bureau has files on individuals which categorizes them as though they were objects," he leaned over, picked up his glorified magazine and set it on the coffee table.

"But I must admit it's a little flattering that I get my own object class."

"Who wrote the damn thing is what I want to know," Jesse had leaned back and was glaring past him at the far wall of the apartment now. The fury had drained out of her, it seemed: nothing was floating, the lights were steady, she was biting the inside of her cheek in her normal display of 'I'm thinking too hard.'

"Mmh, is it going to be the Tennyson report all over again, a witch hunt for an unidentifiable author? And let on to everyone just how worried you are about this? I wouldn't advise that Jesse. You might have to let this one go,"

“It didn’t read like a report from you or Em, I’ve read lots of reports from both of you now,” Jesse exhaled. “It read like a damn phonebook.”

“Was there anything noteworthy in it?”

“It was pretty bare bones, to be honest. I left it in my office, locked up.”

He risked one last question, still trying to make her smile. They were going to have to discuss emotionally induced levitation at some point, but for now he just didn't think this mattered enough to warrant concern. "Did the file include my title?"

"Hm?" Jesse looked up, drawn back from wherever she'd been spinning circles in her head.

"Was I listed as 'Doctor Casper Darling?' Or just Casper Darling?"

"Just 'Darling' actually," Jesse was distant again, immediately.

"Well, that's interesting at least. Maybe they don't think I'm the real me."

"Or maybe whoever wrote it only knows you as Darling."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dumb angst I thought of, god knows whyyyyy. Actually, it's a little bit of logic for the next series, there are a few core assumptions/conclusions about the FBC I'm making here that matter to the next series. One is that the FBC hordes OoPs, which I think is true. They're no longer just collecting to protect, they're collecting to collect, to own, to have, to horde. Another is that whatever the FBC was at it's start, since coming to the House and contacting the Board, it is not more than the sum of its parts.


End file.
